New Home Gadgets

by Darren Murph, posted May 25th 2008 at 4:07PM
RFID has long since been a pretty common find in your modern day hospital, but now GE and CenTrak are teaming up to make the technology even more useful in those long, winding hallways. Simply hailed as RFID “virtual walls,” the creation enables venues to “track tagged mobile medical equipment down to a portion of a single room.” By providing sub-room-level distinction, personnel can locate hardware within a monitored area as tiny as 6- x 8-feet, and although it’ll likely be used to locate cardiac defibrillators and portable ultrasound machines, patients could theoretically be tracked, too. (Read the full post about ‘RFID “virtual walls” could keep tabs on hospital assets’…)

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The latest low-cost, practically disposable handset to hit the market comes courtesy of Hop-On in the form of the $10 HOP1800. The handset will be available to use worldwide as it will come in two models, the dual-band 850/1900MHz or the 900/1800MHz for Europe and Asia. The HOP1800 is just the handset and will require a local and working SIM card wherever you choose to use the handset. The Hop1800 will offer users up to 4 hours of talk time and 150 on standby. (Read the full post about ‘The $10 pre-paid GSM handset from Hop-On’…)

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by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted May 25th 2008 at 7:10AMWhat we have been calling the Asus Eee Box looks to finally have an official name. Based on unnamed sources, the Inquirer is reporting that the desktop PC will be called the Asus EBOX. As already speculated, they are saying it will be revealed on June 3 at Computex. Specs also look to be what we’ve been told already: 160GB HDD, 2GB RAM, and a Linux OS. (Read the full post about ‘Rumors indicate Eee Box will be called EBOX, coming June 3′…)

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Solar power looks like it is here to stay, and we have so far seen solar powered cars being the Holy Grail in the fight to be independent of black gold, or rather, oil. Hybrid cars aren’t exactly catching on as fast as environmentalists prefer, and solar powered cars have not made the impact they were supposed to mainly because the technology is not yet there for a powerful, conventionally shaped vehicle that runs entirely off the sun’s rays. Never mind modes of transportation on land - here we have a solar powered speedboat that will slice through water pretty much in the same way an ordinary speedboat does, save for the fact that this one relies on the sun to power its electric engine instead.

Dubbed the Czeers MK1 prototype solar speedboat, this is the first of its kind in the world, and is capable of hitting speeds of 30 knots in full stride.

(Read the full post about ‘Solar powered speedboat’…)

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It could be the first 21st century plague. Or a class action lawsuit waiting to happen. In any event, a Santa Fe, New Mexico man is leading the charge to get wireless hotspots banned from public buildings in his city, claiming he and others are ultra-sensitive to Wi-Fi radio frequencies.

No medical or scientific groups have come out yet to substantiate claims like these, which have been making the media rounds for the last couple of years; a British woman who is trying to raise awareness about what some are calling electro-sensitivity received some press last year.

(Read the full post about ‘New Mexico man with “Wi-Fi allergies” wants ban on hotspots’…)

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GooSync, a useful tool that lets you sync your Google appointments and tasks to your smarthphone, has just added support for synchronizing your Gmail contacts as well. What’s even better is the fact that GooSync works both ways. That is, whenever you add new contacts from your Gmail accounts, it automatically updates your mobile phone’s directory the next time you run the syncing process and vice versa.

But before you get too excited and go on a syncing frenzy, there’s one catch however. Gmail contacts to mobile phone synchronization only works if you have a GooSync Premium account. To upgrade to premium account, just log-in to your GooSync account and hit the “Upgrade” button.

(Read the full post about ‘GooSync adds Gmail contacts synchronization feature’…)

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by Ryan Block, posted May 25th 2008 at 1:58PM Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of ‘em, but Hop-On’s got a new $10 disposable cellphone that goes by the name of HOP1800. (Read the full post about ‘Hop-On Mobile releases $10 HOP1800, the “anti-iPhone”’…)

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by Darren Murph, posted May 25th 2008 at 4:52AMThis just in: don’t believe anything you hear regarding an official 3G rollout date in China. After quite a bit of rigmarole, the Chinese government has finally announced that it will issue a trio of 3G licenses. Notably, the announcement comes with a bit of baggage — it’s also calling for a merger between China Unicom and Netcom, two of its four biggest telecommunications providers. (Read the full post about ‘China to issue 3G licenses, calls for Unicom / Netcom merger’…)

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So you think that having the fancy pants (and soon to come) 3G iphone or HTC Touch Diamond is the ultimate goal in life? Well sorry to burst your bubble mate, but not everyone thinks of a cell phone as a status symbol. Which explains why the middle class and entry level markets teem with handsets that sport but the most basic of functions, and it is definitely a market that does not seem to slow down anytime soon. Hop-On, Inc. is certainly aware of such a huge market and aims to capitalize on the potential volume by releasing its latest GSM cell phone known as the Hop1800.

(Read the full post about ‘Hop-On rolls out $10 phone’…)

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by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted May 25th 2008 at 1:31AM
There are all sorts of creative uses for GPS, but here’s a fellow who says he sent a self-designed GPS “device” in a briefcase to DHL with express travel instructions. He plotted the shipment’s movement and ended up with the drawing you see above. We’re a bit confused. First, he says he developed a GPS device with extended tracklog and battery time. Okay, but… using what, exactly? Also, we’ve received some things from DHL, and we have a hard enough time just getting them to deliver stuff to the right address, let alone make circles in the Caribbean in the name of art. (Read the full post about ‘World’s biggest drawing created with the help of GPS and DHL’…)

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